Disability is a word I have been obliged to become very familiar with, the meaning, derivation, effects physical and mental, The way it affects obviously and subtly an individuals interactions and connections with society, both general and singular.
I am wholly obliged for the strenuous labors performed by medical and social personnel who have forced society to become multi-inclusive, rather than judgmental and divisive. No doubt there are still great strides to be made, but comparatively to the near past we exist in a world largely open to all, without the burdensome addition of penalty or critique for some arbitrary condition.
We who share the tragedy of less, for that is what any disability do daily present, the consistent need to bolster the portion we can personally gift in this seemingly endless struggle accomplish complete equalization. Perhaps most tryingly having the wherewithal to appreciate the trials and tribulations of those more able, whom do indeed have their own particular burdens to endure, whilst hopefully showing an equal degree of dignity and forbearance.
Life is by its very nature is a struggle, a constant fight for base survival, creating very essence of human evolution.
I do recall when I was younger a mystifying absence of the disabled, the general manner in which the afflicted where hid away, as if the very sight of them might somehow induce a curse of unfortunateness to fall upon the more proficient and fortunate remainder.
One of my favorite aunts was imprisoned in a wheelchair. She wore calipers of both her legs, in response to a condition I was never permitted to know anything about. She sat in her chair from dawn till evening tide, very close to an upper floor French window, looking hopefully forever outward, at the miraculous world beyond the glass, a place whose freedoms she would never, ever, be allowed to experience.
Such is the shame of our civilizations behaviors in the not-too-distant past to our most dear ones, against whom blame was so cruelly leveled for simply being the innocent victims of much pain and suffering.
For their heinous sin of daring to be, for surviving, does most sadly seem to me.
Daily Abstract Thoughts 